Sam Sykes, author of the soon-to-be-released Tome of the Undergates, has been rounding up some of his most hated favourite bloggers and pinning them down for a few questions. Last week, I was the victim.
So, let’s talk about your blog for a bit. You’re pretty connected to the news of the fantasy world, able to get interviews with such greats as Blake Charlton and even deign to speak with such no-names like Joe Abercrombie, your reviews tend to be viewed as honest and affable and you’re a writer yourself. You’re officially one of the big names in blogging. Do you think your success is undeserved? And if not, don’t you think you should? What’s next for A Dribble of Ink?
Okay, first I should clear some things up about Abercrombie. He came to me. Both times, on hands and knees, no less. I don’t know why he was so desperate, his books are pretty popular, but he hounded me excessively, begging me to allow him on the blog.
One night, at three in the morning, I got a phone call. On the other end, through the static of the trans-atlantic phonelines, I could hear heavy breath, like the person was breathing only through their mouth, and the gentle scrape of a comb running through a well-tended neck-beard.
He uttered a single phrase, which I will not appear here, that sent a chill down my spine and haunting my dreamscapes with visions of Logen, Friendly and Ferro having unending threesomes. Ever since then, he’s been allowed to come on my blog and rant, in hopes that the dreams may one day cease.
As for the success of my blog, well, I work hard on it and pour a very substantial part of myself into it, so in that respect, yeah, I think the success is deserved. That said, my official answer is: ‘I’m nothing more than a humble guy just doin’ his thing. I didn’t even know people read my blog, I guess that’s kinda neat!’. There, now I don’t sound like an asshole.
What’s next? Onwards and upwards. This year I hope to cover more short fiction and conduct more interviews. Hopefully there’s good news on my own writing, also. Then I can turn A Dribble of Ink into a platform to shill my own material. That would be good, no?
You can read the full interview HERE. Alternatively, the tables were turned when I interviewed Sykes HERE.
